Or’el Yelizrov, the seven-year-old boy who was critically wounded in a Katyusha rocket attack in Be’er Sheva last month, has left the hospital and is beginning rehabilitation.
Doctors say they are amazed that he is alive, and have reason to believe that he could return to normal life.
The rocket attack occurred just two days before the end of the recent war in Gaza. Two Grad Katyusha missiles fired by Hamas terrorists in Gaza struck Be'er Sheva. When the warning siren sounded, the car carrying Or’el and his mother stopped on the side, as directed by Home Front Command. The two got out, and the mother covered her son – yet a piece of shrapnel still managed to penetrate his skull. He was rushed to Soroka Hospital in very serious condition.
The gravity of the situation was underlined by the fact that Or’el was his parents’ only child, born after 11 years of difficult fertility treatments. The child's aunt tearfully told reporters at the hospital, “They waited for this child for 11 years. All we want is for G-d to give him back to us.”
B’Sheva reporter Ofra Lax reports that after undergoing advanced resuscitation and three complex head operations, Or’el finally began to communicate, eat, and understand and carry out instructions.
To ALYN For Rehabilitation
On Sunday, the family and the hospital held a festive meal in Or’el’s honor, and announced that he would receive further treatment at the Alyn Hospital Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Center in Jerusalem. Alyn is home to and rehabilitates infants, children and adolescents afflicted with a broad range of physical disabilities and congenital conditions.
“Over the years,” the center’s website states, “Alyn Hospital has developed a wealth of expertise in such fields as the treatment of trauma and head injuries from terrorist attacks, road and domestic accidents, neuro-muscular diseases, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, congenital deformities, general pediatric orthopedics, patients needing intermediate ventilation, special feeding management, cancer and burns.”
Jewish Nation's Concern
Or’el’s mother said that some 5,000 people, including many rabbis, had visited her and her son over the past few weeks. She thanked the medical staff for their “24-hour-a-day efforts that saved his life.”
Prof. Shaul Sofer, who heads Soroka’s Children’s Emergency Ward, said that Or’el received “non-routine treatments.” He added that optimistically, “There are been similar cases in which children who were hit by shrapnel in the head were able to return to normal life. His rehabilitation period is now starting, and we pray and hope that he will get through it.”